->'''Ben:''' What makes you think it's a girl?\\'''Kevin:''' Yeah, if it was a girl, it'd have a big bow on the side of its head or something.-->-- ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce''

Writers tend to assume that for some reason [[MostWritersAreMale most viewers]] will assume that the protagonist is a guy [[MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial by default]]. So to make absolutely sure there's no ViewerGenderConfusion, developers will assign Tertiary Sexual Characteristics to the female characters, and sometimes the male characters as well. The male characteristics tend to be less obvious.

Note that many, many animals already have distinct sex-specific characteristics, though these are [[AnimalsLackAttributes almost guaranteed to be totally ignored]] in designing fictional animal characters. (They ''are'' likely to remember that male lions are the only ones with manes, though.) The writers either [[CriticalResearchFailure didn't do their research]] or assumed [[ViewersAreMorons the viewers wouldn't know what they are]].

For animal characters, this is caused by the assumption that the only way to convey gender in such characters is through gender stereotypes in design.

Feminizing accessories and traits include:

* A bow, or, less commonly, [[FlowerInHerHair a flower]]* EarsAsHair* Some type of jewelry, especially if the character is meant to be older.* Pink, purple, or pastel-colored clothes and/or accessories.* A [[PinkGirlBlueBoy Pink]], or purple [[PaleFemalesDarkMales pastel "girly" coloration, or at least lighter than the male]].* An all-white fur color in mammals (As a feminine tertiary sexual characteristic, this is most commonly applied to cats and mice. White dogs, white wolves, polar bears, beluga whales are also white or appear that way, but their white coloration is not applied as feminizing trait, and the latter two animals are or appear white by default.)* Noticeable eyelashes and sometimes eyeshadow. * [[BareYourMidriff Midriff-baring]] outfit.* Lipstick.* High heels, or a leg shape suggestive of them.* Painted fingernails/toenails/claws.* A skirt. (Amusingly, equivalent male characters rarely wear pants, making most of them {{Half Dressed Cartoon Animal}}s.)* {{Long| Hair Is Feminine}} or heavily-styled hair with [[HairDecorations decorations]], even if their species [[NonMammalianHair doesn't even ]]''[[NonMammalianHair have ]]''[[NonMammalianHair hair in real life]]!* [[FurryBaldness Males are "bald"]] and [[FurryFemaleMane only females have "hair"]]. (Though this one would, technically, be a secondary sexual characteristic if the hair is natural.)

Occasionally, the only difference between a boy and a girl will be the location of the bow. If it's a bowtie, it's a boy, and if it's a hairbow, it's a girl. (The bow itself may even be identical.) Human girl characters are sometimes depicted wearing bows on their head, but this is not as pervasive as depicting a female animal character this way.

On the positive side, these gender identifiers are pervasive enough to be considered shorthand for viewers who may be hearing impaired. On the negative side, they are pervasive enough to lead to ViewerGenderConfusion for [[DudeLooksLikeALady male characters with stereotypically "girly" traits]], including many a {{Bishonen}}. Remember though that TropesAreTools and that use of these characteristics aren't bad in and of themselves and helps dispel ViewerGenderConfusion in a quick and easily understood manner.

Compare SecondarySexualCharacteristics, and NonMammalMammaries. For more drastic and often bizarre differences between the sexes, see BizarreSexualDimorphism.

----!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]* In two similar Swiffer commercials, an old-fashioned string mop is spurned by its owner, and seeks female companionship from other inanimate objects. One ad shows it courting a pink (hence female) bowling ball, and the other, a rake with a leaf daintily stuck to its tines where this trope would normally place a flower.* The green M&M and later, the brown M&M.* The Jamster female bunny character Snuggelina would usually be seen wearing a pink bow or a flower around her long ears.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'':** [[TokenMiniMoe Liechtenstein]] from wears a cute little ribbon, bought for her by her [[BigBrotherWorship Onii-sama]] Switzerland. This was required since, without her previous long braided hair, she looked very much like a boy (which she attributes to [[ACupAngst her non-existent chest]], but may very well be because [[OnlySixFaces she simply looks almost identical to her adoptive brother]]).** Hungary was originally assumed to be male by everyone including herself. Then puberty hit her like a bombshell (not the first in the series), and so she started wearing a traditional Hungarian folk dress and a flower in her hair.* The Knight Sabers from ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' come with rather silly high heels on their armour. Even the Fright Knights who were the rather bulky first concept for the suits had high heels.* The {{shinigami}} Rem in ''Manga/DeathNote'' has earrings and colored lips, and in the anime version her highlights were changed from dark blue to pastel purple. Despite this, she's often mistaken for male (possibly due to Ryuk having similar features already), though it's lessened now that there's an anime version with a feminine voice.* In ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', eyelash difference is the only distinguishing feature between male and female [=KaratsukiNumemon=].* ''DragonBallZ'' has Vegeta and Nappa visit a planet inhabited by sentient bugs. The only female bug shown on screen is bright pink, but otherwise indistinguishable from the male bugs.* [=KouRyu=] and [=AnRyu=] of ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'' are basically just like the female Autobots, in pink and dark purple exteriors compared to primary colors. Note that all the other robots in the series have quite masculine faces, and the French Dragons have feminine faces and figures. Not to mention light-up breasts. Volfogg is also more purple than [=AnRyu=], but that can be chalked up to his purple being the standard {{ninja}} [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience color]].* In ''Lightnovel/HaiyoreNyarkoSan'', [[EldritchAbomination Hyrda-chan]], the goddes of the [[FishPeople deep ones]], looks just like her male counterpart [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Dagon-kun]], with an added pink bow and lipstick.* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':** Ash's Butterfree falls for another Butterfree, who just happens to be the only Pink Butterfree around (and this was before Shiny ''or'' gendered Pokémon were introduced in the main series). As it turns out, possibly as a MythologyGag, Shiny Butterfree do have a pinkish tint, and have distinctly pink hands, feet, wings, and a mouth in the second generation.** The anime began using gender differences starting with ''Best Wishes''. It's most obvious with Pikachu-- he was always [[AmbiguousGender implied]] to be male however, thanks to female Pikachu having heart shaped tails post-''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', if he had been meant to be female they would have likely needed to {{retcon}} him male in order to avoid having to completely redesign him. Future episodes show Pikachu with gender differences and when DisguisedInDrag Pikachu even has a heart-shaped appendage taped onto his tail. Oddly though, the fact no heart shaped tailed Pikachu appeared retroactively implies literally ''every'' Pikachu seen before has been male. ** There's another episode where a female Charizard appears. No points for guessing [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charla how you tell]]. ** The end of one episode has three wild Muk falling in love with three other Muk. The latter are identified vaguely as female by their more feminine PokemonSpeak voices, as well as having '''{{Blush Sticker}}s'''.** Jessie's Dustox averted this trope except for the episode she was released in. She wears ribbons on her antenna while her mate doesn't.** Meowth's crush Meowzie has eyelashes, unlike the other (presumably male) Meowth do. She also wears bows. The latter shows that she is both a pampered pet (in contrast to both Meowth and the others, who are street cats) and a female. * ''Manga/TheElectricTaleOfPikachu'' had a version of the ''Pikachu's Goodbye'' story where Pikachu hooks up with another Pikachu with a flower on its head, presumably intended to be female, with Ash's Pikachu [[AmbiguousGender being]] male.** Serena's Eevee wore a ring of flowers on her head. When she evolved she became a Sylveon, which is usually male but has a very pink and frilly design that makes it look effeminate.** May's Bulbasaur had a heart-shaped mark on her head. Her gender was confirmed when she was depicted as a Venusaur.* It happens in ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' where one of the main characters, Yellow, has a Pikachu (named "Chu") that also has FlowerInHerHair, and is a [[OfficialCouple mate]] to Red's own Pikachu, Pika. They even have a Pichu together.* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' has Kongo's pet snake Ekatyerina wearing a pink bow. Justified in that there's usually no way to tell reptile genders apart without [[{{Squick}} sticking your hand into a certain orifice and feeling up their... equipment]].* Dolores in ''VideoGame/ZoneOfTheEnders'' has a generally female shape, but nearly all the major Orbital Frames have somewhat androgynous shapes. She is, however, the only ''pink'' one. That would possibly make Jehuty (main game series) and Testament (Fist of Mars) ''subversions'', as they have female [=AIs=] as well, but more masculine color schemes (Blue and brown, respectively) as more befitting h male pilots (Dolores has a male pilot too, but given her role as RobotGirl, pilots herself most of the time).* Creator/ArinaTanemura depicts her characters with overt sexual dimorphism, quite typical like many other manga creators: guys tend be taller, have noticeable sternocleidomastoid muscles (SCM), smaller eyes which are mostly {{Tsurime Eyes}}; while girls tend to be shorter, have no noticeable SCM, much bigger and childlike eyes which could be either {{Tareme Eyes}} or tsurime (although being girls, their tsurime look softer and less sharp), and of course, absurdly long and luscious eyelashes. What's notable about Tanemura's style is that she has designed transvestite characters for more than one occasion, in which a male character, when donning a female outfit, barely resembles his male self at all: his physical appearance (all of those mentioned above) completely changes accordingly to his so-called female "disguise." That is to say, for some weird rules in the Tanemura multiverse, a tall and hunky guy can completely turn into a little petite girl merely by putting on a skirt, some makeup and girly accessories. These characters tend to serve as mere plot twists that will put even the most adamant suspensions of disbelief to shame.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Asian Animation]]* In ''Animation/{{Oddbods}}'', all of the female Oddbods are given a strip of eyelashes that matches the color of their jumpsuit. This also includes the generic background Oddbods, which gives the female ones an extra feature that the male ones do not, as all the background ones are simply in grey jumpsuits with no special antenna.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* Wellington Grey's ''[[http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/ Miscellanea]]'' gives female stick figures skirts (and occasionally a square head).* In all versions of ''TheMoomins'', the distinguishing sexual characteristics of Moomins seems to be largely limited to what clothes (if any) they wear. Snorkmaiden has her trademark hairstyle though.** In the original books, Snorks and Moomins are different ''species'', so to speak. And the white skin, incidentally, is ''fur'' - and Snorks can actually change the colour of theirs (though that was hastily forgotten after the first book Snorkmaiden and her brother appeared in).** {{Averted}} for The Groke and Too-Ticky, who are female but have practically no gender clues. Several Finns have been surprised to find out the characters are female, as Finnish doesn't have gendered pronouns to point this out.** In the books, The Groke wears skirts (yeah, thats not her skin). Though so does Hemulen...** Surely that averts the trope, then, because the book explicitly states that the Hemulen inherited that dress from HIS aunt.* Used a lot in the Swedish comic ''ComicBook/{{Bamse}}'' most commonly in that female characters tend to have much larger and detailed eyes than male ones.* Averted in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' for Luz in ''A Game of You''. She's an anthropomorphic parrot wearing a dickey with a bowtie, a typically masculine form of apparel. You have to pay attention to the pronouns others give her to figure it out.* The [[PettingZooPeople animal characters]] of ''ComicBook/ToothAndClaw'' seem to have the sexual dimorphism of their real life counterparts. Meaning a character's gender isn't always apparent. In light of this the females tend to wear tiaras with decorative threads that give the impression of long, feminine looking hair. * While Comicbook/{{X 23}} is very clearly a young woman, creators Chris Yost and Craig Kyle [[WordOfGod have said that the arrangement of her claws was intended to be this]], and that two claws in the hands and one in the foot is a female trait for ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s particular mutation.* ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'':** As in the games, Amy is pink. Unlike the games Sonic is not naturally blue furred. He gained [[LockedIntoStrangeness blue fur in an accident]] that caused his superspeed. What this means for Amy is never specified except for one issue that insisted she originally had brown fur too. It had numerous [[SeriesContinuityError issues]] so whether it's accurate is dubious.** Minor character Sally Acorn has a bow on her head while her younger brother wears goggles.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]* Used in typically snarky fashion in ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'': The female crocs and pigs are identified by ''Simpsons''-style beehive hairdos. Maura the non-anthropomorphic duck is given a hair (?) bow to distinguish her from her identical boyfriend Guard Duck - so that when they're both wearing helmets in a recent strip, her bow rides atop.* Bill Amend has an odd variation for ComicStrip/FoxTrot: Female characters have attached earlobes while male characters have free earlobes.* Gary Larson had some fun with this in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'', and it's possible that the aforementioned ''Pearls Before Swine'' took some inspiration from him. Female characters (but usually not the cows) would usually wear ridiculous flower-print dresses, beehive hairdos, and fancy rimmed glasses.* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'s girlfriend Arlene has pink fur, eyelashes, and lipstick. She's also drawn to look more graceful and sinuous than Garfield.** This has also caused decades of ViewerGenderConfusion for poor little Nermal. This is largely because Jim Davis has a tendency to depict baby animals with eyelashes regardless of gender. Even Orson Pig, who started out as a piglet in the ''US Acres'' strip, had this applied to him. But the ultimate example of this goes all the way to the eighth life in ''ComicBook/GarfieldHis9Lives'' special, where a very young Garfield and Odie are seen, and they too had eyelashes.** Of course, in Nermal's case, the fact that he had a clearly female voice actor in the cartoon doesn't help with the confusion at all.* The writers of the ''ComicStrip/{{Scamp}}'' newspaper comic decided to go against the GenderEqualsBreed deal with Lady's and Tramp's puppies, and make one of Scamp's sisters a boy, giving Lady and Tramp two daughters and two sons. The only real difference between Scooter and his sisters Fluffy and Ruffy is that Fluffy and Ruffy have eyelashes and wear ribbons around their neck, and Scooter does not.* In ''ComicStrip/ShermansLagoon'', you can only tell Sherman and his wife Megan apart by Megan's pearl necklace and slightly darker coloring. In a brief arc where Hawthorne had a girlfriend, the two were distinguished solely by the girlfriend's having eyelashes. This didn't work well--some of the dialogue only makes sense if one assumes even the writer forgot which was which.* ''ComicStrip/{{Luann}}'' uses this and inverts it. Most male characters other than Aaron are given dots for eyes, big round noses and simplistic bodies. The women almost always have full figures, pouty lips, droopey/sexy eyes, etc. Luann herself has a big round head and nose with a line for a mouth.* A ''ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'' comic in the Sunday paper a few years ago that featured a newborn baby. When asked by her grandmother what gender the baby was, the mother replied that she wasn't going to say, because it was the baby's one chance to be treated by people without gender preconceptions. The grandmother immediately begins gushing over the mischievous glint in its eyes and tiny fists that prove that it's a boy. When the mother exclaims that "it's a girl! A tough, strong girl!", the grandmother immediately shifts gears with, "Well, of course it is! Look at that precious dimple!"* In ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'', the female citizens of Okefenokee Swamp usually wear aprons and/or bonnets, and Hepzibah wears a skirt. {{Lampshaded}} in an early strip when Miz Hop Frog successfully hides her gender from Pogo by simply removing her apron. Slightly later, Pogo complains about a butterfly who's decided to take up residence on his head because it makes him look like a girl.[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]* In ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' fanworks certain Pokemon are almost always depicted as one gender or the other despite the fact they can be male or female. For example, when Espeon and Umbreon are paired together ([[FanPreferredCouple and they almost always are]]) the Espeon (which is a pink, slightly feminine looking species which is associated with the sun) will always be female and the Umbreon (which is black colored and associated with the moon) will be male, despite the fact Yin and Yang (which is their motif) are female and male respectively and that Eevee have an over 80% chance of being male. Other Eeveelutions follow similarly (for example the scruffy looking Jolteon are usually male while the more feminine looking Glaceon, Vaporeon, and Sylveon are usually female).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]* ''{{WesternAnimation/Anastasia}}'' - At the end, Bartok gets a love interest. You can tell she's female because she has eyelashes, a FurryFemaleMane and her mouth is drawn to look like there's lipstick on it.* ''Disney/TheLionKing'':** Male lions cubs in have black ear markings, while as adults they have none. While with the exception of Sarabi and adult Vitani, none of the lionesses have ear markings. Oddly, when Simba first appeared as a newborn cub, he lacked these ear markings.** All the male lions from cubhood onward have visible whiskers, while none of the females do.** The hyenas feature this trope. The males have dark fur patches that resemble PermaStubble, while the only noticeably female hyena Shenzi has eye patches shaped like heavily applied eyeshadow, and a mane extending to having bangs and a fringe. Shenzi also has no eyebrows, just like her voice actor Caryn Johnson, aka [[spoiler:Whoopi Goldberg.]]** This trope is the reason for a huge [[BrokenBase debate]] in the fandom. The cub at the end of the first movie has male markings but the cub in the [[Disney/TheLionKingIISimbasPride sequel film]] is a female named Kiara. They have numerous design differences which have not gone unnoticed by viewers. This has caused EpilepticTrees that the cub in the first film is actually Kopa, Simba's retconned son in a series of books released shortly after the first film, and Kiara is actually Simba's and Nala's second cub.* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'':** Donkey doesn't realize that the dragon is a girl until she leans in close, into the light, and he can see she has long eyelashes as well as pinkish skin and some coloration to draw attention to the lips. Also a hint of purple on the eyelids, too. She looks like she has an enormous makeup mirror stashed somewhere in her treasure hoard.** While Shrek hardly appears to have any hair at all (except in his ears), the ogre form of Fiona has a full head of hair. Granted, Fiona is not a natural born ogre like Shrek so this may have something to do with it.* In the spinoff ''WesternAnimation/PussInBoots'' the main cue that Kitty Softpaws is female is that she has long eyelashes, which don't appear till [[spoiler:after she [[SamusIsAGirl removes her luchadore mask]]]] and stay around when [[spoiler:she puts the mask back on]], maybe Puss was just being unobservant that day?* ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' has the chunky and functional (male) WALL•E next to the sleek (female) Eve. The other Axiom robots who are (presumably) male are more angled and squareish, reminiscent of WALL•E's cube shape. The sole exception is the hairstyling and makeup bot, which speaks in a female voice, subverting the trope. Part of the reason for TertiarySexualCharacteristics is that closed captioning doesn't confer gender identification. The PR-T's are also all pink... save for a [[TheOneGuy single]] [[PinkGirlBlueBoy blue]] one visible in the background in one shot.* This may have been an attempt to get around the all-too-common ReptilesAreAbhorrent effect, but Master Viper in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' has eyelashes, flowers on her head, and slightly reddish lips; pretty much the opposite of Master Tigress (see below), who is androgynous to the extent that [[ViewerGenderConfusion many people]] (including her own [[Creator/AngelinaJolie voice actress]]) initially thought she was a guy. This also suggests that it may be a deliberate choice on the part of the ''character'', who seemed a bit more secure in both her femininity and her martial prowess than the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Woman]] Tiger. It could also be because that's all she could be wearing and still believably move like a (cartoon) snake; it's harder to pull off CivilizedAnimal without copying either clothing or human movement.* In early Russian StopMotion classic ''Animation/TheCameramansRevenge'', a (presumably) sexy nightclub dancer is represented by a dragonfly with long, delicate wings.* Female animals in the ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' movies tend to have longer eyelashes, lighter colored fur and, when applicable, obviously feminine bodies. Female sloths in particular have girly "hair" and what appears to be ''lipstick''. In the audio commentary for ''The Meltdown'', it is joked by the character designers that they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they'd just stuck a bow on Ellie's head rather than try to modify Manny's design to make it feminine. ''Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' features Scrat facing off against a female Scrat for an acorn. Scratte has dark foxy coloring, a significantly curvier body, eyelashes, and ''blue eyeshadow''. She may possibly also be a separate species since, like [[BizarreSexualDimorphism female]] [[Film/TheDarkCrystal gelflings]], she can glide.* Very subtly done in ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet''. The female emperor penguins have purple undersides under their beaks and males have orange. The females also have their chest feathers shaped to vaguely resemble breasts.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]* Just look at the cover of the film ''[[Film/AirBuddies Space Buddies]]''. [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/space_buddies_cover.jpg Can you spot the token female?]] [[spoiler:Look at the dog on the far left -- she has a bow. And a '''pink''' uniform.]]* In the live-action ''Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks: The Squeakquel'', the Chipettes have longer hair than the boys and eyelashes. They do wear clothes for the majority of the film, but their first scene has them arrive from the wild (no clothes) with no [[NonMammalMammaries NonPrimate breasts]] or HartmanHips in sight. (And then later, they possess both features, which they shake during their big musical number.)* In ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'', one Gremlin gets into a potion that turns it female, resulting in long hair, a garish makeup job, and ''streetwalker clothes''.* In the live action/CGI/animatronics ''Film/CatsAndDogs'' dealt with the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics dilemma by having no female cats and picked a long-limbed and overtly slender breed of dog to play the one female dog character.* A rare live action version shows up in the short film ''Darth Vader in Love'': Vader's female counterpart is dressed in a pink and white version of his iconic outfit, and the edge of her helmet has been restyled to resemble a woman's "flip" hairstyle.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Played with in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice''. Jerin Whistler wears ribbons in his long hair, jewelery, and walking robes. In-universe, this makes him a normal, masculine man. His sister Corelle, on the other hand, is chastised for letting her hair grow too long. At one point in the story, though, Jerin has to disguise himself as a woman, as to not draw attention to himself. However, the kind of women he can most easily disguise himself as is a whore, as due to male GenderRarityValue, whores are usually women who try to look as masculine as possible. Jerin dons make-up, and a feather boa to hide his adam's apple, and his shirt is arranged such that it looks like he's hiding breasts underneath. It works, as most men dress a bit less colourful than that, and don't walk around unveiled and unchaperoned. (The RealLife equivalent would be a woman dressing up as DragQueen.) * In one of Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's [[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Vorkosigan]] novels, Trooper Taura wears a pretty bow to make herself less fearsome to the kids they're rescuing. While she is [[CuteMonsterGirl visibly female]], Taura is also... a large woman. And powerfully built. And she has fangs. And claws. Let's not forget the claws -- in her introduction, she scratches through a heavy-gauge plastic forced hot-air pipe... and no, the nail polish she favors later does not hide them.* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', of course, messes with this:** Dwarf men and women look exactly the same. Originally it was frowned upon in dwarf society to openly identify their gender, but recently some females dwarfs have begun to wear makeup and dresses to differentiate. Amusingly, nearly all of these are derivations on what the others wear; Cheri is shocked at the idea of shaving, clarifying [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarfs still want to be dwarfs]].** The only Dwarf known to shave is the very male Casanunda. He is also depicted as wearing very frilly clothes in some illustrations, while other dwarves of both sexes wear armour. ** When the extremely prim and proper Miss Maccalariat insisted that male golems could not clean the ladies' room, Moist re-named one of them Gladys and had "her" start wearing a blue gingham dress. He does rationalize any golem gender-identification is largely arbitrary, but was more disturbed by Gladys reading women's magazines and slowly acquiring a more obviously female personality. "She" starts to develop a crush on him too. If you thought he was disturbed when she started acting feminine, that's nothing compared to some of the ''happier'' sorts of thoughts that cross his mind when he cottons on that she's getting sweet on him.** At one point he compares her to "the male golems", before reminding himself that they ''aren't'' male, any more than Gladys is really female.** And what about the "boys" conscripted into the Borogravian Army in ''Monstrous Regiment''? ([[ItMakesSenseInContext Socks.]])* In Joan Manley's ''She Flew No Flags'', the young heroine discovers that her equally prepubescent male friend is [[SweetPollyOliver really a disguised girl]] when she notices that "he" has pierced ears.* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', [[HalfIdenticalTwins fraternal]] twins Jaime and Cersei Lannister, as children, would sometimes [[TwinSwitch switch clothes]], causing adults to mistake them for one another.* In ''[[Literature/DanShambleZombiePI Slimy Underbelly]]'', the only way to tell which of a pair of [[EldritchAbomination Senior Citizen Gods]] is female is that she has big floppy red bows decorating one of her many tentacles.* In ''Literature/TheGoblinEmperor'' Chenelo gives her son Maia her only pair of earrings that is suitable for a boy to wear. There's pearls on them. Later on, when Maia becomes Emperor, he wears so much jewellery that one wonders what makes jewellery feminine in this universe. Gender roles clearly exist in the very patriarchal setting. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]* Also seen on ''Series/{{Friends}}'', when Rachel sticks a pink bow on Emma's head because everyone keeps saying, "What a cute little boy!" While [[TheDitz Amy]] goes one step further in getting the baby's ''ears pierced''.* Another baby example: Alfie/Stormageddon from the 2011 series of ''Series/DoctorWho'' is [[http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/doctor-who-closing-time-promo-pics-2.jpg dressed in blue]], but ''Doctor Who Confidential'' reveals that the main "baby actors" in the episode are female twins.* An interesting example might be ''Franchise/PowerRangers''. With a few rare exceptions, when morphed, the female rangers (at least the ones that are female both here and in Japan) have a skirt wrapped around their suit. Considering the fact that usually female rangers are pink, it's not likely confusion will occur. Notably when the series features female Blue Rangers, their suits are always [[PaleFemalesDarkMales a paler shade than the normal]]. Compare [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lLsdaCVk3Kk/TLHXLYa__TI/AAAAAAAB5zc/6uINC3qmkLM/s1600/hurricaneblue-bluewind.jpg Tori's suit]] and [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6c/f5/ea/6cf5eafd3f011385fc5aecd23374d3ad.jpg Madison's]] to [[http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Blue-Ranger-Power-Rangers-Billy-Cranston-b.jpg Billy's]].* ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' puts an interesting spin on this.** The Gokaiger can [[PowerCopying copy the powers of past Ranger teams]]. A few of them have access to suits previously worn by the opposite gender - except the suits will gain or lose the skirts depending on who's wearing them. This is especially funny for [=GokaiYellow=], since many of her predecessors were already gender-flipped by ''Franchise/PowerRangers''.** Also, occasionally, a female ranger's helmet's had earrings. This stopped with [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fk5o5Zs4PI0/TckCTU_7upI/AAAAAAAAAF8/4Qui68gCw6g/s1600/vlcsnap-2011-05-09-16h52m22s28.png Maskman]] and [[http://images.wikia.com/powerrangers/images/4/40/FiveYellow.jpg Fiveman,]] but it had been there since the beginning with [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--Ji-ga-tEqE/TfRAO5EKlPI/AAAAAAAAU7M/3J4Lz90nl6M/s1600/sentai2018.jpg Goranger]] (although, at least then, her earrings were bombs, so they were at least useful.) And then, there's ''Series/BattleFeverJ'' where Miss America had [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ceu0Cw7Ra48/TGmALOrgllI/AAAAAAAABEE/_KJa1iARQyw/s1600/battlefevermissamerica.jpg a feathered blond hairdo]] on top of her helmet.* As with Lola Bunny (see below), [[Series/SesameStreet Abby Cadabby]] is a serious point of contention for some [[Series/TheMuppetShow Muppet]] fans, and for many of the same reasons. Abby is a bright pink and purple [[FairyCompanion Fairy]] [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses Princess]] (it looks disturbingly like [[ExecutiveMeddling the character was designed by a marketing committee]]), complete with pigtails and a skirt. In contrast, very few other Muppet creatures on ''Sesame Street'' -or several other Muppet productions come to think of it- have any really obvious gender clues. Miss Piggy is the only one who springs readily to mind.** Janice from the Electric Mayhem band has long blonde hair, huge black eyelashes, and enormous red lips.** Prairie Dawn from ''Series/SesameStreet'' is prepubescent, but has pigtails (complete with hairbows), eyelashes, and a blue gingham dress to clue viewers in that she's a girl.** WordOfGod is that Abby looks different from the other female Muppets not because she's the [[TomboyAndGirlyGirl girly girl]] (although she is), but because she's a Fairy. Apparently, the idea is that Fairies are a different puppet "ethnicity" (which may explain why she looks so much like the Sprites in ''Series/JohnnyAndTheSprites'' NB-- Abby's voice actress was Ginger in ''Johnny and the Sprites'').** Zoe the Monster (Elmo's DistaffCounterpart) originally just had the generic "girly" eyes seen on some female Muppets and a somewhat soft color scheme as her tells. Lately, however, she's noticeably smaller and wears bangles and bows at all times -- and occasionally wears a fluffy bubblegum pink ''tutu''.* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Parallel Universe" featured {{Distaff Counterpart}}s of all the cast (except the Cat). The "female" Skutter (a steel-blue utility robot with a claw-like hand and a single eye) was bright pink and had eyelashes and a 'skirt' around her chassis. Averted in Series V•III, which introduced a female Skutter called Madge who looked identical to every other Skutter. The Cat's parallel is, much to his disappointment, a humanoid dog.* On ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', the robot Gypsy has a high-pitched voice and over-sized lips.* In a parody of a then-famous TV shows about animals, the German humorist Creator/{{Loriot}} presented the stone louse (a stone-eating bug) to us. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steinlauswlp.png This is how the female looks like.]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Music Videos]]* The music video to Angus And Julia Stone's "I'm Not Yours" portrays the molly cat as having [[HumanoidFemaleAnimal breasts]], wearing a dress, and having eyelashes while her husband has no eyelashes, wears a tie, and has darker fur. [[YourCheatingHeart His other lover]] is actually darker than him - averting PaleFemalesDarkMales - however she has breasts too, wears a dress, and has a bow on her head.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]* [=OI4k=] members Irish Airborne and Sami Callihan are represented by a skull missing its lower jaw and crossbones. Nevaeh is a member too with the same symbol, only with a pink bow tied around the bones.* A variation of the skull with bow symbol is also used by [[Wrestling/TaylorWilde Shantelle Taylor]], who added cracks that resemble eyelashes.* Jay Briscoe put a bearded skull on his personal Wrestling/RingOfHonor title belt.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]* The Bad Idea Bears from ''Theatre/AvenueQ'' use the bowtie/hairbow version, plus the 'female' bear has eyelashes and a pearl necklace.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]* ''Franchise/SylvanianFamilies'' figures are exactly the same whether male or female. The only way to tell them apart is from their clothes; boys wear various dungarees and shorts while girls wear dresses with flowers and bows. You can swap clothes without noticing the difference. There are four families with horns or tusks; however there are currently at least 61 families, and more if you count family members that only come individually in accessory sets.* The Big Brother Ponies in G1 of ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' were, realistically, a bit larger than other adult Ponies (all female). They also had overall bolder color schemes, and were given hilariously exaggerated "masculine" names, accessories, and occupations. (The Fandom has not ignored the fact that [[http://www.kimsites.net/dreamvalley/5th_edition_ponies.html#big_brother_ponies5 the hats]] [[http://www.kimsites.net/dreamvalley/6th_edition_ponies2.html#big_brother_ponies6 and collars]] given to the Big Brothers make them look like [[HoYay some kind of equine Village People tribute band]].) However, their most prominent designating male feature was... big hairy feet. Because draft horses in RealLife are a OneGenderRace. Uh...* The Franchise/{{Lego}} Life on Mars theme has the female Martian Cassiopeia, whose gender is distinguished from the male Martians by her eyelashes.* The ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'' toy line rarely used traditional characteristics; the most female-looking character as definitely Roodaka, the spider queen. However, the line ''created'' an internal TertiarySexualCharacteristic, the color blue. The only female tribe to get toys was the water tribe, and at least ninety percent of all blue figures were members of the water tribe. So, any figure that was blue was assumed to be female until otherwise noted. Though in the current iteration of the franchise, called Gen 2 by the fans, this rule may no longer apply. Korgot, Protector of Earth, is confirmed as female. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* ''Ms. VideoGame/PacMan'' has a bow on her head. In the AnimatedAdaptation, Sue, the DistaffCounterpart of Clyde, became a purple ghost with eyelashes and earrings.** Ms. Pac Man also has an eyelash, and a mole, and if you look real closely, you can also see lipstick.** Discussed in an exchange in ''Film/WaynesWorld'', which provided this trope's alternate title:-->"Well, she's got a bow on her head!"** The minuscule difference between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man was played with in WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether, where Pac-Man reveals that he ''is'' Ms. Pac-Man when he puts on the bow.** One of the ads for a home video game system version of Ms. Pac Man had the titular yellow gobbling-disk try to convince us otherwise, by singing "Honey, don'tcha know / I'm more than Pac Man with a bow!"* In the ''Gremlins: Gizmo'' video game, you can choose to care for a couple of female mogwai, distinguishable by their long eyelashes.* Female avatars on ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' have ponytails. Many of the alternate avatar images, as well. The male version of Vestments of the Treeslayer is a tree. The female version is the same tree, with a little bow tied to one branch.* The only seen female Krogan in the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' series is wearing a full body covering robe while males are almost always wearing combat armor, and the few who don't wear simple shirts and trousers. However, they still were able to split off from the males and form their own exclusively female clans that are doing just fine on their native DeathWorld Tuchanka without any males protecting them from wild beasts and raiders, so it's more likely that the one example of female clothing were special priestess robes rather than common clothing for women. [[spoiler:And even then she still had no problem at all with taking a shotgun from the person next to her to shoot a cyborg assassin coming up behind him.]]** Quarian females generally wear a hood or veil over their helmet, while males have little hook things hanging from their rebreathers. These are on top of form-fitting full-body environment suits that clearly show very prominent humanoid sexual dimorphism [[note]] Female: wide hips, Male: wide shoulders and such. All Quarians we've met are quite slim which accentuates both. [[/note]], moving away from the trope somewhat.* The ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games do this quite a bit:** Generic Toad [=NPCs=] are identified as female by having long hair and eyelashes, which is a little strange, given the ViewerGenderConfusion suffered by the original Toad over the years.** Bombette, a female Bob-Omb, is pink, has a blond, braided fuse, and a heart-shaped windup key.** Goombella is also pink, and she has a blond ponytail.** Goombario wears a blue cap similar to Mario's, while his sister Goombaria wears an orange-red bow. And has a pink body. Their mother is also pinkish in color and wears a pink head kerchief, although their grandmother is brown and merely has a lacy cap. However, none of his three female relatives have hair, unlike Goombella.** Ms. Mowz, a Mouser, has a heart-shaped tail and wears high heels.** Interestingly, Watt and Sushie are aversions. Sushie otherwise looks like an ordinary Cheep-Cheep except for purple and orange coloring, and Watt, a Sparky, has only a pacifier (to signify that she's young). There's still some [[ViewerGenderConfusion confusion]] among gamers regarding Watt's gender. The fact that the game refers to Watt as both male AND female at different points doesn't help either.** Petuni, the only known female Puni (other than the Elder), can me distinguished by the ''pink'' orb on her antenna.* The female Chain Chomp that sometimes appears when the Pocket Chomp item is used in ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time]]'' has a bow on its head.* Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG''. At one point Mario and company encounter a Chain Chomp visually identical to every other Chain Chomp in the game. Bowser however is easily able to determine that it is a girl and then "acquires" her as a weapon that he can hurl at enemies.* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros''** Wendy O. Koopa has a pink hairbow, a pink shell, makeup, jewelry and high heels. Interestingly, despite being the only female Koopaling, Wendy is one of only two Koopalings with no hair.** Pom Pom, a feminized version of Boom Boom. Even her ''boomerangs'' have bows on them.** A recurring quest in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' requires the player to capture a Goomba and meet up with another, female Goomba somewhere in the kingdom. You can tell she's a girl because she has long eyelashes, {{blush sticker}}s, and--oh yeah--is pink. (Actually, she looks a lot like [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor Goombella]].) Atypically for this trope, though, she also wears a red cowboy hat.* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': Atropos, Robo's DistaffCounterpart, DuelBoss, and girlfriend is pink and wear a bow. In fact, after you beat her in her DuelBoss fight versus Robo, she gives you her ribbon as a special Robo-only equippable item.* In ''VideoGame/{{The Sims 2}}'', you can build male and female Servos (robot butlers). The male looks like a generic robot, but the female looks like the male with a pink bow and lipstick.* ''VideoGame/MySims'':** Sims are technically neither, though the specific characteristics they're given tell the tale. The player-controlled Sim can be given any available characteristics you want. (Feminine voice, eyelashes, and attire with a masculine hairstyle and a five-o'-clock shadow? Go for it!)** In ''[=MySims=] Kingdom'', on the other hand, you choose a gender for your Sim, and that puts a limiter on what your Sim can wear, what kind of hair is available, etc.. Sometimes, it changes what outfits you get as a reward. For example, there's a reward that lets males choose from a selection of outfits that are shorts-only; females get two-pieces, some with shirts over them (split near the bottom).* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':** Gender-specific physical differences were created for some Pokémon in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' and carried forward for future games (for example female Pikachu have heart shaped tails and male Torchic have small dots on their backsides). Fortunately, they mostly tend to be arbitrary markings or based largely on gender differences in reality, so good on Game Freak's part. Female Wobbuffet appear to wear ''lipstick'', but [[RuleOfFunny it's just for the lulz]]. Mercifully, none of [[SuperMode Mega Evolutions]] or [[UndergroundMonkey Alolan Forms]] have visual gender differences, even though their basic forms did.** Prior to this, the few gender-dimorphic Pokémon had their obviously different male and females listed as '''separate species'''! Male Volbeat is red and has a glowing tail, female Illumise is purple and doesn't. As a maybe-intentional subversion/inversion of the typical blue/pink color scheme, Nidoran-line females are blue/indigo, but the males are ''[[RealMenWearPink pink/purple]]''. Shiny variants avert this, though (except for Shiny Nidoqueen, which is greenish).** Note that the Pokémon that get different stats based on their gender ''are'' actually very different. The male and female Nidoran lines learn entirely different moves and have differing stats. Some Pokémon only exist as a certain gender (no male Combee will ever evolve into a Vespiquen, for example). [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Generation VI]] introduced Meowstic, who share the same Pokedex entry but have different colorings, completely different movesets, and (if leveled up to learn moves as normal) lend themselves to completely different styles.[[note]]In a subversion of the normal RPG rule of thumb, the female's the attacker while the male favors support techniques.[[/note]]* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'' didn't always have gender differences, but after the pet artwork received a global update, female pets gained conspicuously longer eyelashes over their male counterparts -- or, in the case of the insect-like species: partially-closed eyes.* When Amy Rose first appeared in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'', her defining sexual characteristics are being pink (a contrast to Sonic's blue), eyelashes, and a skirt. When she was redesigned for ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', her femininity was more emphasized by changing her hairstyle (up until then, it was exactly the same as Sonic's), giving her an actual bust size (she was changed from eight years old to twelve), and giving her large golden bracelets to wear on her wrists. [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog Archie]] gave her secondary characteristics. Played straight with most characters in the games, where the only differences are eyelashes and clothing styles.* Now that it's no longer a secret that SamusIsAGirl, Samus's PoweredArmor in the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series has undergone a slight-but-noticeable makeover to make the gender of its wearer more obvious. It possess a rather slender waist and a large BreastPlate, and its visor is now more obviously transparent, usually showing off Samus' eyes... and her rather long eyelashes.* In ''VideoGame/TheMovies'', the full-body animal costumes are the few unisex outfits, because they ''replace'' the character model for the actor rather than fitting over it. Except, the gorilla suit has a male and a female variant. The lady gorilla has a bow and lighter fur (but, curiously, no [[NonMammalMammaries cleavage!]]) And no, you can't cross dress it; it always matches the gender of the actor.* In ''Nuts & Milk'', Yogurt looks exactly like Milk with the addition of two pink bows on her head.* In ''VideoGame/IceClimber'', Nana (the P2 character) is just the Popo sprite with a pink parka instead of blue.* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie: Nuts and Bolts'', Rare apparently got tired of the years of people going [[ViewerGenderConfusion "Kazooie's a girl?!"]], so they re-made her appearance. She now has long eyelashes, "curly" hair, and a more curvy look, to make her more obviously female. And then, once you beat the game, she starts wearing a bowtie (yes, it's a bow, but it's a masculine bow).* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'', The Kid, gets a bow in his hair on Normal Mode, to [[EasyModeMockery suggest the less than masculine choice of playing on the easiest setting]] As if the extra save points with "WUSS" written on them weren't enough of a clue. Ayane gives Ryu one in the Xbox ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' if he selects Ninja Dog mode.* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':** All over the place in the ''Kirby'' series, where characters are given bows to show that they're female. It's most obvious with Chuchu the octopus and Ribbon the fairy. The only two exceptions seem to be [[CuteWitch Keke]] and Adeleine. This caries over into the fandom, where fanmade female characters are usually given a bow, or at least big ol' eyelashes.** The blue Lololo's distaff counterpart Lalala is pink and wears a bow.** Taken to the extremes with Kaboola/Kabula, an airship boss in ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand'' and ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar Ultra''. Her most recent redesign has eyelashes painted on her hull.** Many male characters in this series tend to have big bushy eyebrows.** Inverted in ''Videogame/KirbysEpicYarn'' with an angler fish couple Kirby is responsible for reuniting, as the male is smaller, pink and wears a bow around its body.* ''VideoGame/BubbleBobble'':** The protagonists of ''Bubble Symphony'', a sequel to ''Bubble Bobble'': Coro and Kulu, who have bows on their heads, are the female duo BetaCouple to Bub and Bob.** Pab and Peb, the new Beta Couple in ''Bubble Bobble Plus (UsefulNotes/WiiWare)''. (See the Title Operations Guide in the Wii Shop Channel.)** ''Rainbow Islands'': [[spoiler:Three out of eleven random people who have all been imprisoned in TheAlcatraz and transformed into green bubble dragons are female and thus have a pink bow on their head.]]* In ''VideoGame/{{Twinbee}}'', one of the ships (not just the pilot of said ship, the ship itself) is female. How can you tell? Winbee is pink. Later adations have also shown that her cockpit is shaped like a heart, though this is somewhat excused - with two rounded bumps on top, it also shows she's the second 'bee ship. Twinbee, the original, has a round cockpit (one "bump"), while Gwinbee, the third, appears to have a rounded arrow pointing down (three bumps on the top part of the cockpit).* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', female Moogles are distinguished from the males by wearing pink vests.* In one quest from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' you rescue a kidnapped Seeq beauty queen. Her sprite is indistinguishable from a male Seeq viking, but in her portrait she's... a male Seeq viking with lipstick.* In ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', the Bouncywild, the DistaffCounterpart of the monkey-like Powerwild, has blonde pigtails and a bow.* Nintendo's Miis have all the same facial and hair combinations, however males wear a shirt and pants and females wear a dress that flares out.* Three of the four female Kongs in the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series have long, blonde hair. The only one to not have it is Wrinkly Kong, as she is an old lady.* [[MemeticBadass Pablo Sanchez]] of ''VideoGame/BackyardSports'' has a baseball cap, is bald, and wears shorts. In every game except Skateboarding where he wears a helmet.* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'': Why can you tell Zelda apart from the other [[AnimatedArmor Animated Armors]]? ''Because she's freakin' [[color:pink:pink]]!!''-->'''Random Phantom:''' (to Zelda) YOU SEEM CUTER THAN USUAL. WHY.** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Ages]]'', the Maku Tree in Labrynna has long eyelashes, ganguro-style makeup, and a large flower low in her branches.** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' the [[http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Female_Monkey Female monkey]] is distinguished from the others by a rose on her head.* Mocked in ''VideoGame/AceAttorneyInvestigations'' by Edgeworth, where he objects to its use on the Pink Badger, the Blue Badger's DistaffCounterpart.-->'''Edgeworth:''' I suppose this is the Pink Badger? But since it has the same design, doesn't it seem forced to call this one a female?\\'''Kay:''' You think so? I mean, just look at how long her eyelashes are!\\'''Edgeworth:''' That's the only difference.\\'''Kay:''' And the fact that she's pink.\\'''Edgeworth:''' Yes, and?\\'''Kay:''' And her lips are red! See, lipstick!\\'''Edgeworth:''' (thinking to himself) ''What? She has nothing to say about the giant pink ribbon, or is that too obvious?''* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'':** In ''VideoGame/SpyroAHerosTail'', girl dragon (and {{expy}} of Amy Rose) Ember is [[PinkGirlBlueBoy pink]], has a necklace, and has a heart-shaped tail tip. Spyro and Flame on the other hand are purple and bright red.** In ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'', some of the female dragons hatch out of their eggs ''already wearing a bow''.* All ''VideoGame/{{Creatures}}'' games exhibit a mix of this (many official breeds differ by hairstyle, two have ''makeup'' on the females, and one C1 breed had pinkish females and bluish males) and more typical sexual dimorphism (different coat colors, horns on male Fallow Norns.)* Bandage Girl in ''VideoGame/MeatBoy'' series wears a distinctive flower.* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'':** Your player character will wear a t-shirt and shorts if they're a boy, and a dress if they're a girl. They'll also each have a different set of hairstyles (though at one point in the game, girls can get boy haircuts and vice versa.)** In the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 original title, and its updated versions on the UsefulNotes/NintendoGamecube, the female protagonists wore cone shaped hats while the boys wore viking helmets, that they were unable to remove. Custom hats in future games still use these designs.** On the NPC end, animals will have either blue or pink name boxes during conversations depending on their gender.** Averted starting with ''New Leaf'', where it's possible to cross-dress and even make your character look exactly like the opposite gender. [=NPCs=] wont react to it, but other players might. Also getting your hair done a certain amount of times at Shampoodle (New Leaf only) will unlock opposite gender hair options.* ''Gokujou VideoGame/{{Parodius}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Otomedius}} G'' have the giant female Moai head Yoshiko, who wears lipstick and earrings. The latter game reveals that it's not her real face.* In ''Chack'n Pop'', Miss Chack'n can be told apart from Mr. Chack'n by the ribbon in her hair.* In ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' some later bird additions and merchandise have stylized "feminine" eyelashes and bows on their heads.* The Flash game ''VideoGame/VisionByProxy'' is about a round blue alien with one big eye, who looks like a blue [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Mike Wasowski]]. The sequel ''Ms Vision By Proxy'' is about a round pink alien with one big eye, a bow on her head and, for some reason, a belt. Taking it up a level, the alien from the first game appears in the opening cut scene and has grown a moustache.* 'Big Sis Prinny' from VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness is pinkish-purple rather then blue like the generic Prinnies.* Isaac's female alter-egos from ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'':** Maggy has a blonde wig with a bow in it.** Eve has a scraggly black wig, ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow, and a dead bird in her hair that could be mistake for a bow at a glance.** Lilith has a long, red wig.* ''VideoGame/StarFoxZero'' features a pink colored vixen. She also has a fluff of fur on her head, though not the FurryFemaleMane Krystal has.* Determining a Sackboy from a Sackgirl in ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'' is based solely on what clothing and design options the player places on them.* The main characters of ''VideoGame/{{Snipperclips}}'' seem to be male and female based solely on their tertiary traits. One of them wears a bowtie and sneakers, while the other has long eyelashes, and wears a scarf and flared heel boots. * Rebecca, the female hedgehog from ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheWoolBall'' and its sequel, can be recognized as female because she has visible eyelashes and long hair. * ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' cleverly uses the same accessory as one for male and female at the same time. One of the bosses fought is a large domino with a masculine top half named Pip, and a feminine bottom half named Dot. There is a bow in the middle of the domino that would serve as a [[RingAroundTheCollar bow tie]] for Pip, as well as a [[HairDecorations hair bow]] for Dot. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]* ''Webcomic/FauxPas'' has foxes where the females have slightly darker fur and eyelashes, as well as makeup-style fur around their eyes. [[http://www.ozfoxes.net/fp/fp-357.jpg The humans in the comic are likewise confused.]] Randy, a male red fox, even was [[http://www.ozfoxes.net/cgi/pl-fp1.cgi?4 miss April]] once: "Some humans are weak on details".** The "gloves" on the vixens are a fairly straight example in the comic.* Inverted in Webcomic/EightBitTheater where Berserker assumes that all of the Light Warriors are women due to their lack of beards. To be fair, he is a Dwarf.* ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' typically distinguishes female from male stick-figure characters by giving the former hair.* Kay Wai Jellese/Kaye Haychold in Jennifer Diane Reitz's webcomics ''Webcomic/UnicornJelly'' and ''Webcomic/ToSaveHer''. Kay/Kaye (like the author) is actually male but transgender, as her species defines that. In ''Unicorn Jelly'' she's a conical blob with eyes and a mouth and wears a bow that's held in place on her "forehead" by a small stud. In ''To Save Her'' she (or a version of her) assumes humanoid form (with [[NonMammalMammaries a female figure]])) and still wears a bow on her forehead.* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'', after one of the [[StarfishAliens lobster-like]] [[SpacePirates Pirates of Ipecac]] is suddenly revealed as [[SamusIsAGirl female,]] she is then always portrayed with [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070828.html eyelashes and slightly rounded curves on all the pieces of her shell.]] Up till this point, both pirates had been drawn identically. Since the transition occurs ''between panels of the same strip'', Cleaveland is probably [[LampshadeHanging Hanging A Lampshade]] on this trope.* In ''Pokey the Penguin'' female characters are just smaller copies of Pokey with a bow or colored down on their heads.* In the almost never safe-for-work ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'', there is a specific reference to the Bow of Shame in "Son of Kronar". They affix it to the head of a newborn baby girl before throwing her in the wolf pit.* ''Webcomic/HannaIsNotABoysName'' has a bat with lipstick, eyelashes, and possibly eyeshadow. It's a bit justified by the fact that she's a vampire who has shapeshifted into a bat, and therefore has retained some of the traits she has in her more humanoid shape. (There's a vampire who, in bat-form, continues to wear glasses.)* [[{{Tomboy}} Lucy]] in ''Webcomic/BittersweetCandyBowl'' wears a bow for this reason. Or did. Puberty has since fixed this problem, but she still does out of likely habit.* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' has [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-08-16 elephants with eyelashes.]]* ''Webcomic/FruitIncest ''mostly averts this. Nelly looks exactly like Wally but with a horn. Dahlia has long eyelashes, but that's more to do with her personality than anything else.** Also inverted with Molo and Zeke. They're both male, but Zeke has a feminine tuft of hair, curlier whiskers, and lighter colored fur.* Pretty straightforward in ''Webcomic/MountainTime'', where females always wear skirts. They also have hair much more often than males.* ''Webcomic/{{Minus}}'' illustrates the titular character's problem with lacking Tertiary Sexual Characteristics [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus36.html here]]. Many readers have probably thought she's a guy, too.* ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'' has Peanut Butter helping Grape prepare for a date, [[http://www.housepetscomic.com/2009/08/12/dear-you-just-look-fabulous/ revealing what he'd done with a mirror]].-->'''Grape''': ''({{Gasp}})'' Wait, did you just comb my eyelashes out?-->'''PB''': [[LampshadeHanging You'd be surprised what a difference it makes]].* In ''{{Goblins}}'', all female humanoids have an hourglass figure. Goblins, however, don't typically have hair on their heads, and it is not considered an attractive trait. Complains, however, finds those that do have head hair to be [[http://www.goblinscomic.org/11012015-2/ absolutely gorgeous]]. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]* ''Roleplay/DorfQuest:'' The girls are pink! And the gods, Blue.* ''WebVideo/GameGrumps'' has Danny lampshades this when he [[UnsettlingGenderReveal finds out Birdo is a guy]] by saying that pink bows are "practically video game genitalia"* ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' features red bows on female imps.* In the ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' cartoon "Costume Commercial", the ghosts used as decoration are typical white blobby ghosts, until the announcer says "and for the ladies..." at which point it's a pink background and the ghosts have bows on their heads.* Lampshaded by ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick'' in the ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'' review (after [[SamusIsAGirl Samus is revealed to be a girl]]):-->'''Lindsay:''' (as Mulan) At least I have eyelashes again.* Female Website/{{Neopets}} can be distinguished from male ones by the fact they have visible eyelashes.* ''Webcomic/OffWhite:'' Kaya, the female wolf Iki [[LoveInterest takes a liking to,]] has eyelashes. Very [[http://akreon.deviantart.com/gallery/4769272?offset=0#/d2xxp65 ugly eyelashes,]] even the co-author doesn't like them. Thankfully they are only visible in closeups.* [[https://www.google.de/logos/doodles/2015/45th-anniversary-of-the-publishing-of-barbapapa-5112521539190784-hp.gif The Google Doodle]] for the 45th anniversary of Barbapapa. All of the girls have flowers on their head. Since the Barbafamily consists of amorphous blobs, it's the only sign. Interestingly, they all have eyelashes.* Martynne "Martie" Bennet from ''Wiki/{{Killerbunnies}}'' has a mostly gender-neutral or rather tomboyish appearance, however, one can tell she's girl due to her eyelashes and her frilly socks. Similarly, this can occur for Mullein "Muli" Wayleaf who's distinguishable as a girl due to her eyelashes and pigtails. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'':** The evil wizard Gargamel takes his revenge on the Smurfs by creating a 'Smurfette' to trick them. While the male Smurfs all wear white pants and had very little hair, the original Smurfette had long black hair and a white dress. In a nutshell, the Smurfs disapproved of her because she wasn't a real Smurf. So Smurfette visited Papa Smurf, and he turned her into a pretty blond in a sexier white dress, heels, long eyelashes, and a flirty attitude. UnfortunateImplications and gender stereotyping in one fell swoop. No wonder poor Smurfette has [[TheSmurfettePrinciple a trope named after her]] -- and it isn't a positive one either.** A second and third Smurfette (named "Sassette" and "Nanny Smurf" respectively, to avoid confusion) were introduced latter. Sassette (who is also an artificial Smurf) wears overalls, like Handy, but hers are pink and she has long, red hair, which she wears in GirlishPigtails. Likewise, Nanny Smurf (Who knows where she comes from) is identified as female by having hair and a female voice. It should also be noted that all three Smurfettes have notably smaller noses than the male smurfs.* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Ewoks}}'' animated series, princess Kneesaa wears a pink hood and her best friend Latara a long braid and a hood that looks more like a hat. While both have subtly implied breasts just like most other female characters in the show, it's only aunt Bozzie and the second season version of Shodu Warrick who wear dresses and have prominent breasts. Seemingly, the only other character seen in a dress, mistress Kaink, has moustache.* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. Cartman pretends to be trans in order to get his own private bathroom at school. He continues to wear the exact same clothes as usual and simply adds a bow to his hat.* Haley Long in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong''. She doesn't have the bow, but when she transforms, she always has her hair. Though this seems to be true for all the characters when they transform, male or female, her dragon form is also ''pink'' (in season 1 she was purple, which is considered more unisex though leaning towards feminine than Jake's red tone). When Fu Dog is showed macking on a female dog, she usually has a bow, lipstick, and/or a sparkly collar. Hey, Fu digs the girly-girls.* Franchise/CareBears come in all colors - though a female Bear's fur tends to be more noticeably pastel. And nearly all of the pink-furred characters are female by default. In some series, they even wear girlie clothes too. (Note that this applies to cases where [[ViewerGenderConfusion the writers had made up their minds]] as to who was what.) Subverted with Swift Heart. Even though she had a very obviously feminine voice and behavior, ''nobody'' realized she was a girl since she's a blue rabbit with no bow or anything. Swift Heart might actually justify this trope on a meta-level.* There's an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' where Timmy wishes everyone would look exactly the same. Everyone turns into a gray blob... and the female characters have ''gray lipstick'' and heavy eyelashes. In one episode, Timmy accidentally wished he was a girl... and was [[AttractiveBentGender turned into a girl]] with a ponytail, a bow, eyelashes, lipstick, a blouse, and a skirt. Although, Wanda granted it because he was acting a bit sexist, and presumably chose how he looked.* In their heyday, WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes inadvertently became the TalkingAnimal equivalent of a sausage party. Over the years, attempts were made to add some ladies into the cast for a more even gender balance. The results were... mixed:** Babs Bunny in ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' has the eyelashes, the bow (one for each of her ears, in fact), and a skirt, and her fur is bubblegum pink. Similar tells are on Shirley the Loon (long hair/feathers, a dress, and a bow) and Fifi [=LaFume=] (a bow and purple fur). The good news is, their personalities were strong enough to transcend these obvious cues.** Originally, Lola Bunny from ''Film/SpaceJam'' was going to be little more than a pink-furred, shorter version of Bugs. Oddly, Creator/WarnerBros toned down her Tertiary Sexual Characteristics ''too'' much. This was an attempt to avoid upsetting anyone, especially the merchandise makers. But the story goes that the [=McDonald=]'s execs took one look at the prototype toys and outright refused, saying that there was no way that they would accept Bugs Bunny flirting with a rabbit who ''looked like a 10-year-old boy''. Speaking of Lola. She stands as a point of major contention for fans of the Classic ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', and it's partially ''because'' her gender-specific traits are so obvious. It makes the addition of a female member to the cast seem all the more forced. She even had the hair bow in ''WesternAnimation/BabyLooneyTunes''.** This trope is pervasive enough to have caused ''decades'' of ViewerGenderConfusion for poor little Tweety Bird. He even used to be pink (changed to yellow when MoralGuardians thought he looked too naked). Oh, but now [[ExecutiveMeddling Word of Executive]] says Tweety is female? Look at that. Guess he had a sex change after ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaWX43bTW0 I Taw a Putty Tat.]]''** Whenever Daffy is mackin' on a lady duck, she tends to have ''very'' obvious tells.* On the [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Disney side]], in early cartoons, Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck would be virtually indistinguishable from their respective beaus if it weren't for the lashes, hair bows, heels and skirts. In an interesting footnote, Minnie seemed to favor going topless, while Daisy's skirt barely covers her bare bottom. Not that there's anything there to hide, but...** Interestingly enough, take a look at some of the [[FollowTheLeader characters who popped up in Mickey and Minnie's wake]] and you'll come away with the impression that Minnie was the TropeMaker for "Well, she's got a bow on her head!"** More recent designs of the two characters have toned down their more obvious tells. In particular, Daisy now looks more graceful and feminine (for a waterfowl) and less like WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck in a dress. She has also acquired some NonMammalMammaries. [[OlderThanTheyThink Even in the classic days]] various artists differed in their ability to make them look feminine. The ArtEvolution went towards the obvious side of this trope.** ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' lampshades this by mentioning Minnie's obsession with hairbows, sometimes making it part of the plot. In one episode Mickey and Donald had to crossdress as their own girlfriends (pictured above) to replace a picture of Minnie and Daisy they broke while playing football inside the house.* Oddly, only Blossom of ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' has the hair bow, though she and her sisters are all in dresses, and all look like little freakish bigheads, as do the Rowdyruff Boys, and the counter-Blossom has the baseball cap tell.** The episode that introduced the Rowdyruff Boys has the girls sporting long eyelashes in a ploy to disarm and eventually destroy them by using their feminine wiles (i.e.: kissing them).* Phil and Lil on ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' pretty much ''have'' to do this as they are [[HalfIdenticalTwins fraternal twins]] distinguished solely by their voices and gender-appropriate clothes. They frequently switch around to confuse their parents. They also had different shaped ''ears''. They also have different colored shoes, Lil wears a dress, and Phil has pants.* ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'' is all over the place. Yin herself has the eyelashes and the hairbow. Her friend Lena seems to get by on just lipstick. The Aardvark Princess has the clothing, but neither lipstick nor bows. Villain Smoke has the secondary sexual characteristics. No bows, no lipstick, but a [[Franchise/SailorMoon Sailor Scout]] type outfit, and big breasts. Villain Saranoia has the secondary sexual characteristics, as well as the lipstick. Carl's mother has the lipstick but not the clothes or the breasts. The Chung Pow Kitties all have the eyelashes and bows. Which is justified, because they communicate only with kitten-like meows. One really couldn't tell without the eyelashes and bows.* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'':** Panini has the eyelashes and the girly color scheme, but wears a sweatband/scrunchie around her ears rather than a bow. Chowder in comparison is light purple, which is often considered feminine though can be unisex. Chowder and Panini are the same species but look nothing alike.** Also, in the "Thrice Cream Man" episode: compared to the titular creature, which is an aqua-blue blob of [[LetsMeetTheMeat living thrice cream]], the Thrice Cream Woman is pink (strawberry-flavored?) with lipstick, eyelashes and [[NonMammalMammaries breasts]].* The short-lived series ''Sitting Ducks'' pokes fun at this concept, by having the main character Bill be ''completely'' unidentifiable (even being mistaken for a girl at least once) until he is given a bow to wear around his neck. ''All'' the ducks are [[OnlySixFaces identical]], and are only distinguished by their clothes. Some of the female ducks wore makeup and jewelry, except for Drill Sergeant Duck, who lacked every tell except the actress (who was an alto). This was so prevalent that in one episode the aversion was lampshaded. ("Stop calling me sir, I AM A LADY!")* Early female Franchise/{{Transformers}} always had breasts or [[BreastPlate breast-like torso armor]], "feminine" coloration (pinks or pastel shades), narrow waists, and hips. Some modern ones however, aren't like this, sometimes due to being characters whose toys were originally molds used for male characters, other times just due to being less conventional character designs.** Character: [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Thunderblast]]. Episode: "Memory". Robot nipples.** Override of [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Velocitron]] has heels in her robot form. Her status as female is only in the American dub as ShesAManInJapan.* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'', females tend not to appear particularly different from males, although in some art, Ducky and Cera are given near-pastel color schemes. In the fourth film, a guest character called Ali is written in, who is the same age and species as Littlefoot, although a different gender. To get the effect, Littlefoot's design is copied, but the eyelashses are lengthened slightly, eye colour is changed from red to blue and her overall colour is slightly redder. Another new female character, an Oviraptor, is added into [[RecycledTheSeries the series]] -- and she's ''pink''. And she's named "Ruby", presumably to help the colorblind. Amusingly, Ali's appearance evidently isn't enough to establish her gender to the other characters -- Ducky ''checks''.* Most of the female robots in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' are like this (with some notable exceptions).** Bender gets hammered into Fembot shape in one episode, including reworking implied genitals that he has never demonstrated before or since-- his ''lack'' of such was vital to saving him from the Space Amazons. Another episode had a robot with an obvious "fembot" figure that turned out to be anything but... at least until "she" finished her payments. And the Crushinator may be a piece of big, clunky Lunar farming equipment, but she's still pink, sporting pigtails, and still female... still has a woman's ''needs''.** There's also the female Nibblonians, with ribbons on their eyestalks and long eyelashes -- though oddly enough, their race also has a more realistic sexual dimorphism in the males having larger canines.** The bows and eyelashes are also somewhat {{justified|Trope}} here, as that makes the girl Nibblonians ''even [[RunningGag cuter]]!''* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'' has Angel, who is a copy of Stitch but with a very high-pitched voice, pink fur, long eyelashes, an hourglass figure, and long antennae that look like hair. She has a heart marking on her back in her first episode. Her special power involves singing, which causes [[HeelFaceTurn anyone that used to be evil]] to [[FaceHeelTurn turn evil again]].* Female Irkens in ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' have long eyelashes and curled antennae. Tak and Invader Tenn are the only female Irken characters (aside from Tallest Miyuki, whose episode was never finished), but several Irken with the same traits show up in crowd scenes, and are presumably female as well. To be fair, this may be the ''only'' difference between male and female Irken, as it's heavily implied they don't even reproduce sexually.* The ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Trading Faces" [[FreakyFridayFlip swaps Darkwing and Goslyn's bodies]]. The only physical change made to them was that Darkwing's body had eyelashes and Goslyn's body had none.* Sartana of the Dead from ''WesternAnimation/ElTigre'' is an undead skeleton-headed woman. She wears a dress, has lipstick and eyelashes, as well as HartmanHips.* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', Giggles, Petunia and Lammy all have long eyelashes. Petunia wears a flower on her head, while Giggles and Lammy have hair bows.* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', Dot has a yellow flower around her ears (which sometimes appears with a pink bow), a pink skirt and on fancy occasions wears a pink dress and matching jewellery. She also has tufts of fur from the side of her face that make her look like she has a pixie-like haircut. Rita the cat has eyelashes, as does Slappy Squirrel, who also has a hat with a flower on it. On the male side, Yakko and Wakko have shorter hair than Dot, with Yakko wearing pants (oversized slacks with a large belt) and Wakko not, although he does wear a [[PinkGirlBlueBoy blue]] sweater and red baseball cap. The Hip Hippos also had a PinkGirlBlueBoy color scheme.* {{Inverted|Trope}} in the series ''Literature/WhatAMess''. Well-groomed Afghan Hounds naturally have long hair on their heads, and long hair that tends to make them look like they're wearing fancy clothes. Despite all this, the Afghan Hound protagonist, What-a-Mess, is a male dog. However, this trope is played straight with the cat, Felicia. She has long eyelashes and a bow.* In kids' show ''Dive Olly Dive'', the female submarine has curly eyelashes, pink eyeshadow, and a ''heart-shaped headlight''.* Christmas special, ''WesternAnimation/RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer'' (the stop animation one) has Claurice, a doe that Rudolph is attracted to. How do we know Claurice is female? Well, she has no antlers for one thing, but she also has lighter fur, eyelashes and a bow on her head. Yup, definitely a female deer. In real life though, both reindeer sexes have antlers. In fact, the females shed theirs later in the year than the males do; the reindeer that have no antlers by Christmas are the old males.* The female locomotives from ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'' were all specifically designed after real locomotives that appear "feminine" to the show's writers. For example, Daisy has eyelashes and lipstick, Mavis and Flora both have cowcatchers and runningboards that resemble skirts, both Emily and Molly have large drive wheels, Rosie and Lady are both colored pink, and Belle's smokebox is extended in a way so that she appears to have long hair.* In ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', Petunia Pig wears red ribbons on her pigtails.* In ''WesternAnimation/MegaBabies'', Meg's eyelashes and ponytails distinguish her from her brothers Buck and Derrick.* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':** As far as secondary characteristics go, males lack eyelashes and have more angular muzzles and narrower ears than females. Some are noticeably taller and stockier, but not all; for example, the exposed muzzle is the only way to determine Wonderbolt (and Shadowbolt) genders (unless they [[BadassMustache really want to let you know]]). There are, however, a couple of mixed and non-standard character designs in the background cast, which have been cause for endless confusion. Also, most male ponies [[note]] usually generic background ones, which in turn was one of the major inspirations for the fandom creation of Doctor Whooves [[/note]] tend to have ruffled or spiky hair while almost all female ponies' hair are completely smooth and straight. In one episode, Rarity was shown to wear false eyelashes, and she's been seen applying mascara to Fluttershy. The main difference seems to be the size of the male ponies who are always one-half or one head taller than all the females (with the obvious exception of [[LargeAndInCharge the Princesses]], of course). For ponies, who are around three heads tall, this is actually quite a large difference.** One particularly unconventional difference is that female ponies' eyes are usually rendered with two catchlights (and fillies have three), while the males only have two.** Female phoenixes have pink feathers and different head feathers. [[SubvertedTrope Or so it might seem at first]], but [[ShownTheirWork if you know much about real birds' sexual characteristics]] you will know that it is [[RealMenWearPink the smaller pink phoenix]] [[InvertedTrope who is the male]] (or just look at the confirmed-female phoenix, Philomena).** Male Breezies have shorter manes and rounder eyes, but still look just as girly as the females with their eyelashes. * In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', only females have visible eyelashes.* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'' had Jimmy making a DagwoodSandwich and then using it as a CompanionCube. He made it female be putting a ribbon on it.* This trope is played with quite commonly in the ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' episode [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gssbQvhHihE "From Here to Maternity"]]. The situation involves shopping for essentials for a baby that Filburt and Dr. Hutchison are expecting to be hatched from an egg while Heffer nurtures it. Filburt and Heffer obviously expect the little tyke to be of opposite genders, considering that instances involve Heffer picking out a frilly pink dress while Filburt picks out a football jersey. There is even a montage involving Filburt playing baseball with the egg and teaching it how to shave, while Heffer dresses the egg up in a tutu and dances ballet with it and plays tea party with the ''bowed'' egg.* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Bugged}}'', a female bug appeared who was differentiated from the (presumably) male central bug by having bows on her attenna and lipstick.* If it isn't otherwise obvious, the easiest way to tell if a dog or puppy on ''WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies2010'' is male or female is to look for eyelashes. If there are some, it's a female; if not, the pooch is a male. (Unless, of course, the dog's person is making up their male dogs as female for some reason.)* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' uses this for some characters in the GenderBender universe--for example, the female version of [[TheDitz Cinnamon Bun]] wears a dress and bow, while the male version of [[CoolOldLady Tree Trunks]] has a mustache and a bow tie. In the normal universe, neither wears clothes. * In kids' cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/CaptainZedAndTheZeeZone'', the rather macho dream policeman Captain Zed has an assistant called PJ. In early series it is very, very, hard to precisely work out his/her gender, which subverts this trope. The best guess you can make is "maybe a tomboyish female. Or a teenage boy." Later series of Captain Z make it rather clearer: PJ is a normally endowed human female, physically recognizable as such by the usual secondary sexual characteristics, ie wider hips, facial features and a hint of bust.* Often unnoticed: In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' the women all have a pronounced upper lip (not supposed to indicate lipstick, as it only applies to the upper lip, and the occasional woman with lipstick has both lips accentuated) while male mouths are completely surrounded by thin lines.* ''WesternAnimation/WordParty'': How do you tell that Franny and Lulu are girls aside from their name and voice pitch? They both have ''eyelashes''.* ''WesternAnimation/ToucanTecs'': The otherwise androgynous Red Leader wears a pale pink scarf. Averted with Fifi, however, as apart from her voice and name, there's absolutely no indication that she's female.* Penelope Pitstop's ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' car, the Compact Pussycat is not only various shades of pastel pink and bright red with a pair of ruby red lips as a grill, but her dashboard features lipstick application, hair dryer, and other feminine options. * Rota Ree on ''WesternAnimation/WheelieAndTheChopperBunch'' is a yellow convertible who is also Wheelie's girlfriend. Her windshield is the form of a pink bow.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]* In the Finnish comic ''TheSwearingHedgehog'' female hedgehogs have eyelashes to distinguish them from male ones. Except for the main character's grandmother, who is recognisable by being nearly bald and ''even more'' foul-mouthed than the title character.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]* Human babies. Without their little pink or blue onesies, they're undeniably [[AmbiguousGender androgynous]].** They have actually done several social experiments with this. The point of the experiment was to show how people treat female and male children differently. Each time they would just use one baby and just give it different clothes (pink and bows for a girl, blue and maybe a sports shirt for a boy). No one could tell the difference.-->"[[Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife Is it a boy or a girl, doctor?]]"\\"[[Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife I think it's a little early to start assigning gender roles, don't you?]]"** To many observers, a frilly ''blanket'' implies that the baby's a girl, even if the blanket is blue.** Not ''all'' white babies are bald. People generally assume any [[http://images.agoramedia.com/ugcphotoservice/100/2016/3/6/61605268/a84e1588-22b7-41d6-a343-c1a6de5a3978.jpg baby with long hair]] is ''female'', any baby that's ''bald'' is ''male'', and that any baby that [[http://www.newkidscenter.com/images/10401055/image001.jpg has short ''hair'']] is ''male'', and any [[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/453878468669075828/ baby with pigtails]] is ''female''.** In a hospital's neonatal ICU, you can tell which of the scrawny plum-colored creatures in the Isolettes are the girls: they're the ones with a loop of pink ribbon, in the rough semblance of a bow, gently taped to their bald heads.* It is sometimes hard to tell clothed boys from girls before puberty just by looking at them, aside from hairstyles and clothes differences.** Likewise, many children are naturally androgynous due to them lacking obvious sexual characteristics and voice types being more variant. It's not unusual to see a girl with a rather deep or scratchy voice, or a boy with a feminine one. The voice type typically relates to how people talked to the baby as an infant.** Women and teen and tween girls have voice types that are every bit as variant as that of prepubescent girls. It's boys voices that get distinctly deeper become less variant in types as they hit puberty. It's not unusual to see a women with a rather deep or scratchy voice, but it is unusual to see a man with a convincingly feminine one. This is also the reason why female voice actors are often hired to voice children, whether they are boys or girls. Male voice actors usually cannot do it.* The only thing distinguishing the man from the woman in bathroom signs is a dress on the latter.** Attempts at doing something different (such as one Scottish sign showing men in kilts and women with extremely large breasts) can be hilarious.** It's true when we talk about stylistically ''neutral'' signs. More stylistic signs are more versatile, but it usually ''is'' either clothes (skirt vs. trousers, suit vs. dress), footwear (flat heel vs. high heel) or headwear (top hat vs. lady's hat).* The most noticeable difference between the mascots of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets and the WNBA's Charlotte Sting (now defunct), other than the gear of their respective teams? Eyelashes.* Creator/{{Banksy}}'s [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CZKj6QSaAZ4/SfntzfBnqMI/AAAAAAAAAjw/cQEZjqSZFeQ/s400/Picture+6.png Happy Chopper]] piece, painted on a wall in Shoreditch in 2003 (the special effects were supplied by deep fat fryer).[[/folder]]

!!Exceptions

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]* ''Manga/TokyoMewMew'': ** Subverted in a way, as the aliens, all male, tend to have some feminine hairstyles. The most prominent of the three would be the youngest, Tart, who has pigtails. They all have very thick eyelashes to confuse you more.** As for the CatGirl and title character, Ichigo, when she becomes a cat, she has black fur. This makes it very hard to see her eyelashes and when the male cat [[spoiler:Ryou]] comes by and has such obvious eyelashes against light fur, it throws you off. Sometimes voices are the only way you can tell, and even then it's hard, since you have some CrossdressingVoices going on. Though, this is anime...* Much of Creator/OsamuTezuka's works. Most male characters designed by him has long eyelashes, and in certain cases, even end up looking feminine (''Manga/AstroBoy'' could easily pass off as a girl if his name didn't make it clear that it's a ''he''). ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'' actually caused some ViewerGenderConfusion, and it didn't help that he was [[CrossdressingVoices voiced by Yvonne Murray]] in the new dub.* Eyelashes appear to be the only difference between males and females of most species of Franchise/{{Digimon}}. The voices usually readily reveal gender - but not always. Season 4 has a male Biyomon with the same appearance ''and'' voice of the female Biyomon who was a main character in Season 1. The male Biyomon in Season 5 has a more masculine voice, but he isn't any less adorable 'n' pink... and with his debut, we've officially seen more male than female versions of the most stereotypically feminine [[SleepModeSize rookie-level]] Digimon.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* {{Subverted}} in ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' where Picknose the troll often wears a dainty bow on the end of his beard. Maybe his girlfriend tied it.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]* ''ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor'': In "The Indelible Alison Bechdel", author Bechdel discusses the irritation of comic books wherein TheChick is distinguished by slapping a female characteristic (lips, long hair, the proverbial bow) on the male default. She also discusses how she was initially unable to draw women and only drew men -- and was finally able to draw women only by thinking of them as lesbians and drawing them rather androgynously.* Subverted, dragged behind the shed, chopped into pieces, and disposed of in several dumpsters by George Herriman's ''ComicStrip/KrazyKat'', where the lead character looked male but was treated by the author as indeterminately gendered; when a pronoun was used, it was usually "he" (perhaps in a nonstandard gender-neutral sense?), but Herriman deliberately muddied the waters with the romantic triangle between Krazy and the indisputably male Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse. Most people since have treated Krazy as definitively female based upon the strip's cultural context. Which is odd, as he will bow to ladies, tip his hat (if he has one) and occasionally be subject to the wiles of the local "vamp." Of course, he'll start comparing himself to Juliet one panel later. Essays have been written. Not to mention the fact that "he" wears a red bow on his neck. And no, not a bow''tie''.* In ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', the grey kitten Nermal is believed by many to be female due to his long eyelashes and excessive cuteness (and in the TV series, female voice actor), but Nermal is actually a young tomcat.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'''s Master Tigress completely lacks the usual tells -- no hourglass figure, cleavage, "lipstick" or long eyelashes. Her clothes are not stereotypically girlish either.** Not quite obvious, but still subconscioussly telling signs might be her feminine "seductress" eye shape and (but only in comparison to male characters in the movie) lean, not obviously masculine body shape.* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'':** Subverted when we find out [[spoiler:Kevin, the brightly-colored bird with no obvious male or female distinguishing characteristics is both female and a mother.]] Which makes even less sense, as in most sexually dimorphic [[spoiler:bird species]] it's the ''male'' who is colorful and often sports long [[spoiler:tail feathers]], brightly-colored [[spoiler:wattles]], or eye-catching patterns, while the female is of a muted color that blends into the background.** But play straight with Ellie, who as a child looked so tomboyish in her explorer gear, the only indication that it was a girl was the pale, pink bow on her messy moptop.* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'', all of the stitchpunks are artificial lifeforms with no defining characterisitcs, but 7 has a female voice. Other than that, she shows no feminine habits of dress; if anything, her birdskull helmet and militant stance are so stereotypically male as to create a SamusIsAGirl effect when 7 first speaks. The only notable difference is that her fingers are shown to be smaller than 9's.* Sabor the leopard from ''Disney/{{Tarzan}}'' has no feminine characteristics, and doesn't speak. She however is confirmed to be female and apparently had offspring according to some material. The gorillas too lacked heavy gender differentiation aside from their voices (although Kala has dark eyelids that look like she wears eyeshadows), which led to ViewerGenderConfusion with Terk, who was voiced by Rosie O'Donnell.* Parodied and subverted in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', where Francis, a male ladybug, has long eyelashes, full lips and a BeautyMark, and voiced by Creator/DenisLeary.-->'''Francis''': SO! Bein' a ladybug automatically makes me a ''girl''! Is that it, flyboy?!\\'''Flies''': YIKES! She's a ''guy!''* In the first ''Disney/LadyAndTheTramp'' film, the Darling's son has an extremely pink bedroom and an equally pink wardrobe. The sequel released decades later swapped it for blue, probably due to pink becoming less unisex since the original film.* The Boob from ''Film/YellowSubmarine'' sports very prominent eyelashes.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]* Baby Herman of ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' fame not only has eyelashes and a hair bow, but his hair bow is ''pink''.* In ''Film/StuartLittle'', the fluffy white cat, Snowbell, is male and voice acted by Nathan Lane.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Bruce Coville's book ''Literature/AliensAteMyHomework'' features a female alien with no real sexual characteristics the human protagonist could recognize except for her voice, but even then he wasn't sure at first. (For an added bonus, one of the other aliens is neither male nor female and asks to be referred to by the pronoun "it.")* In ''Literature/TheGoblinEmperor'', female and male mazei (mages, basically) wear the exact same robes and wear their hair in he exact same way. The reader knows this because [[spoiler: when the Adremaza introduces Kiru Athmaza]], he hopes to be able to pass her off as male [[spoiler: nohechar''is'']], but Maia can immediately tell she is a female [[spoiler: nohechar''o''.]] At no point is it mentioned that the female character changed anything about her appearance before or after this incident. As the setting is quite patriarchal with strict gender roles, it is quite possible Maia would not have seen through it if the character had worn gendered clothes.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]* Very pointedly averted in ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues''. Blue is (duh) blue -- and female. Her non-girly color was deliberately chosen for this reason. Blue's friend Periwinkle the cat, despite the [[GenderBlenderName girly name]], is both pastel [[FemaleFelineMaleMutt and a cat]]... and ''male''. Furthermore, since most characters have generic "[[SpeakingSimlish little kid]]" voices, you frequently can't tell if a character is male or female until someone uses a pronoun on them. Random side-characters were actually far more likely to be female![[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* VideoGame/BestFiends always uses lipsticks and eyelashes to identify females, but for Karma, she looks like a dude for not having one.* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':** Ribbons in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' can normally only be equipped by the [[OneGenderRace female-by-default races]], Viera and Gria, and by female Humes... but the otherwise [[OneGenderRace male-by-default]] Moogle and even Bangaa races have a job that can teach them "Ribbon-bearer" support ability. Guess what it allows them to do?** Also played with in one mission, where there is a rule against harming characters of the opposite gender. The fight features Night Dancer, an apparently female bangaa with long eyelashes, lipstick, and a feminine way of speaking. This is not breaking precedent; unique characters are allowed to have a different gender than the species standard (such as Adelle, Frimelda, and Penelo, the only playable female humes in the whole game - though Penelo has access to the Viera class set). However, if you attack Night Dancer with a female, you're suddenly informed that you broke the law - which means "she" is a cross-dresser!** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' set the precedent of Ribbons as female-only equipment but made a very special exception for guest star and one-time (forced) cross-dresser Cloud Strife.** A similar thing happens in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' with the armor set "Allure of Honey" made up of items from Cloud's famous cross-dressing adventure. He and all of the female characters can wear the set... along with ''[[MonsterClown Kefka]]''.* In ''VideoGame/ZombiesAteMyNeighbors'' there's a power-up potion that temporarily transforms the player character into a hulking unclothed purple beast. Julie's monster form is identical to Zeke's -- one can't tell the gender of the underlying human via visual inspection. This trope is ''applied'' in that it is Julie, not Zeke, who retains a characteristic of her human appearance so that the two can be distinguished when both transformed at once. This trope is ''downplayed'' in that the retained characteristic is... her bright red baseball cap.* Despite being pink, no one seems to mistake Franchise/{{Kirby}} for being female.* Smiley from the ''VideoGame/RiddleSchool'' games has a ''mouth'' as her characteristic...seriously. As a style choice, WebVideo/JonBro made all the children bald and gave all the adults hair. Since Smiley didn't have the usual TSC of hair, he tried giving her a mouth instead. It didn't work: The special features section in Riddle School 5 lists "Smiley is a guy" as the biggest misconception about the series.** The ArtEvolution in Riddle School 5 gave her slightly more feminine-looking eyes. Even with that, it's still slightly difficult to tell since Riddle School 5 regularly [[ArtShift shifts art styles]], and this change is most prominent during sequences [[spoiler:when you're in the space ship.]]* Averted in ''VideoGame/ThreeInThree'': the title character (a ''talking digit'') is addressed as "Ms. 3" despite having no TertiarySexualCharacteristics.* Played with in VideoGame/TeamFortress2: The Pyro, whose gender is up for debate, has a flower purse in his/her/its locker and a Southern Baptist-styled NiceHat as one of its possible headwear.* Parodied in the online game ''[[http://games.adultswim.com/lee-lees-quest-adventure-online-game.html Lee-Lee's Quest]]''. In the intro, the titular character Lee-Lee, a blue blob, assumes that Lulu, the pink blob standing next to him, is his girlfriend. Lulu is OF COURSE just another guy who happens to like pink and have long eyelashes. Though, the sequel opens by revealing that Lulu is pregnant and heavily suggests that she was just saying anything she could think of to get Lee-Lee to leave her be.* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', Hooktail is actually a female, but has no typically feminine features to speak of.* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':** Watch a LetsPlay video, and chances are the player will refer to Chica as a "he" or a "mister". No bow, no eyelashes, a dingy yellow color, and wearing [[AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal just a bib]] that says, "LET'S EAT!!!" in gender-neutral purple and yellow letters. Played straight with her redesign in [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]], though.** Bonnie spawns similar confusion in the fandom, with having a feminine name and a purple color scheme, but [[AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal wears a red bow tie]] that usually designates a male. * There are two female Mighty Number robots in ''VideoGame/MightyNo9''. Dynatron is feminine-looking and humanoid, but Cryosphere has nothing that signifies her as "female" besides her voice.* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'''s Inklings have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example)--heck, girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! On the NPC side, Callie, Marie, and Marina all have long eyelashes, though it could just be makeup, while Pearl has no visible ones like other female Inklings. All of the idols have moles, but while Marie and Pearl wear dresses, Callie and Marina both have shorts.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]* Totally averted in ''Webcomic/{{Digger}}'', which may confuse people used to tertiary sexual characteristics in HumanoidAnimals. Digger is female, as are many of the matriarchical hyenas, but you'd only know it from the dialogue. She does have what look like NonMammalMammaries, but WordOfGod suggests they are pectoral muscles, as a wombat's mammary glands are in her pouch.* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Calliope, a Cherub who happens to be female, has visible eyelashes. She [[SplitPersonality shares a body]] with her brother Caliborn. When he is first properly shown, he ''also'' has the eyelashes. Both wear the same, gender-neutral outfit (the main difference being Calliope wears a suit jacket with her symbol, while Caliborn takes it off to reveal his on their shirt), and the way they're told apart is by their eye and cheek colors. This is most likely to make them look [[AmbiguousGender as androgynous as possible]].* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' neither [[TalkingAnimal talking rabbit]] Bun-Bun (who's male) nor talking ferret Kiki (who's female) are given any sexual characteristics, tertiary or otherwise. Likewise Aylee (an alien with InvoluntaryShapeshifting powers) has often had no features indicating she's female, though her current GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe form has plenty of female features, right down to the "naughty parts."* ''Webcomic/{{Vattu}}'' [[ZigZaggingTrope zigzags]] with this one; the women of the dog-like Sahtans are distinguished by their clothes and particularly their veils, but otherwise lack any overt dimorphism. Fluters on the other hand are a [[AmbiguousGender complete mystery]] to all outsiders.* Subverted frequently in an [[http://thisdomainisirrelevant.net untitled]] stick figure webcomic that expresses the differences between males and females in body language and anatomy. Usually keeping both a circle with five lines and deriving humor (and elitist criticism) from the fact that most people perceive some thing without clear gender specification as male by default.* Invoked, Subverted and Conversed in the span of [[http://dmfa.katbox.net/comic/1402-yep-diplomats-all-of-them/ a single page]] in ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures''. The character invoking the trope was not recognized as female, and the one subverting it was not recognized as male. The latter justified the aversion of the trope on the grounds that they're part of a race of shapeshifters, making such traits superficial at best. * It's even mandatory for ''one-celled organisms'', as [[http://www.gocomics.com/super-fun-pak-comix/2016/09/16 this]] installment of [[ComicStrip/TomTheDancingBug Super-Fun-Pak Comix]] demonstrates.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* ''WesternAnimation/WonderPets'' has another toy-around with this. The hero, Linny Guinea Pig, wears a baseball cap and cape. She's a girl, though. (The fact that her name sounds like "Lenny" doesn't help the ViewerGenderConfusion, of course...)* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' has female style eyelashes. They're probably there to make him look even cuter, as he has an endearing child-like demeanor... but sponges don't even ''have'' genders the way we understand them and can reproduce asexually. The show's creator is a Marine Biologist [[ShownTheirWork so...]]-->'''Spongebob:''' Can you reproduce by budding?** When Mr Krabs tells him that a hat he's wearing makes him look like a girl, Spongebob happily takes it as a ''compliment'':-->'''Spongebob:''' (starry-eyed) Am I a ''preeetty'' giiirl?*** Later when Krabs tells him that he ''isn't'' beautiful, Spongebob lets out a sad, little "I'm not?" and gets tearful.** Lampshaded sometimes when some characters actually ''do'' mistake him for a girl, or aren't sure what gender he is.* WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}} has no visible features which distinguish her from the males whilst other females are given breasts, curves and eyelashes. Possible FridgeBrilliance in that she is a frog, and hence would not have breasts or hair. PlayedStraight in the games she and her friends play, as fake moustaches and bows are often donned.* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'':** Spinelli [[OneSteveLimit shares a first name]] with [[AlphaBitch The Ashleys]] clique... and nothing else. She does wear a skirt, but she gender-neutralizes it with her very masculine boots, coat, and hat. She has pigtails though, so she's not completely neutralized.** The show actually subverts the cartoony way of not really having any tertiary sexual characteristics, like the eyelashes, as none of the girls (or if anyone's wondering, the boys) have any. The only characteristic the girls are given to look different are that they're drawn with full lips (with the exceptions of Cornchip Girl and a few others). In fact, the ''only'' female character drawn with eyelashes is Miss Grotke. She probably wears mascara.* Oddly, the Russian animated series ''Animation/NuPogodi!'' features a little hare, who, despite sporting long eyelashes, big blue eyes, pink cheeks, engaging in girly activities such as watering flowers, and being [[CrossdressingVoices voiced by a woman]], the artist [[WordOfGod insists]] is a male. It's a ZigZaggingTrope where Hare is concerned- There's no ViewerGenderConfusion in this case in homeland Russia, because the hare in question is called/named just the Hare, and the Russian word for "hare" ("Zayats") is masculine by default, implying that the Hare is indeed a boy. Don't ask. He is also wearing shorts. Unfortunately, the rest of the world who watched the exported version of the show were rightfully confused given that the English VA preserved Hare's high-pitched voice, left the scenes where he engages in feminine activities uncut, and girls, and just assumed the pants to indicate a tomboy. The trope is played straight with a lot of other anthropomorphic animals appearing in the series, whose gender is mostly determined through the pants vs. skirt method.* On one of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Halloween episodes, the aliens Kang and Kodos are revealed to be siblings -- and male and female respectively. Both have identical appearances and deep voices (though if you listen carefully, Kodos's voice is ''slightly'' higher).* Played with for the [[RuleOfFunny inherent humor]], in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers''. Doctor Girlfriend's physical tells are obvious -- she likes the same pink dresses and pillbox hats Jackie Onassis wore. But if you only heard her and her very masculine [[CuteButCacophonic smoker's voice...]]* Mama Condor in the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes short ''The Bashful Buzzard'' has none of these, looking like an ordinary cartoon vulture.* ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots'' averted this by assigning gender to the (presumably genderless) toys in a completely arbitrary fashion. Small Foot in particular has no human-esque gender indicators apart from her voice.* Zigzagged in ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'': Tasha in 'reality' is a typical girly-girl in a cute dress and takes similar parts in the pretend adventures, while Uniqua wears overalls more usually characteristic of males or {{Bokukko}}s and gets an impressively gender-neutral selection of roles. Then again, she is also [[PinkGirlBlueBoy pink with darker spots]].* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', Flaky lacks the long eyelashes of the other girls. Between this and the fact that the series [[TheUnintelligible has very little intelligible dialogue]], there has been quite a bit of ViewerGenderConfusion.* Jerry of ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' inverts this with his long eyelashes and cute face, leading to ViewerGenderConfusion for some. Female cats in the shorts had long eyelashes, wore lipstick, bows and sometimes female clothes.* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':** Inverted majorly. Darwin the fish has feminine eyelashes and a rather girlish voice, although his VA is a boy. Contrast with other female characters like Tina (a relatively realistic T-rex), Masami (a cloud) [[note: This was lampshaded once by Gumball not being sure if she's really a girl]] Molly (a brontosaur), and Carmen (a cactus), who have very gender-neutral appearances. Several other male characters also have eyelashes (Richard the rabbit, Alan the balloon, the donut cop) while only about half the female ones do.** That said, any time a flashback shows Nicole as a child, she's always wearing a red/pink bow, likely to obscure how she [[StrongFamilyResemblance looks almost identical]] to her own ''son.''* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' has at least one. Similar to the ''Wonder Pets'' listed above, there was a young female character with a gender neutral voice and a baseball hat nickname "W.D."; she also has a gender neutral haircut and wears masculine clothing, to emphasize she's a tomboy. Her name is "Wilhelmina", but no one calls her that.* Mostly averted in ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'' and played with in "Miss Understanding". Due to some mistake, Skipper's led to believe that he is actually female. Once he accepts it, he promptly puts on a big pink bow.* As mentioned above, the "Big Brother Ponies" from ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' were essentially the only male Ponies up until G4. They looked [[http://ponibooru.413chan.net/_images/60df65757db81fd1b6ea03f868cb04b6/41207%20-%20big_brother_ponies%20g1.jpg almost]] [[http://ponibooru.413chan.net/_images/a0dc595a6d758a263e7bbd8d593a8a3e/34663%20-%20Big_Brothers%20Mountain_Boys%20big_brother_ponies%20g1%20toy.JPG exactly]] like the girls except for "boyish" Ffank markings, being a tiny bit larger than the girls, and unshorn fetlocks. Depending on whom you ask, several of them look even [[{{Bishonen}} more feminine]] than the girls. FridgeBrilliance pops in when you remember that G1 liked to be accurate, and horses have long eyelashes.* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':** Speaking of G4, lots of casual observers think Rainbow Dash is TheOneGuy because it's exactly the sort of art style where a blue character would generally be ColorCodedForYourConvenience. Additionally, her mane (though still long) is a lot closer cropped than the rest of the Mane Six, her voice is about the same timbre as Spike (who is a prebubescant male dragon), and she is tomboyish in behavior.** Zecora has the more angular muzzle of male ponies, though much slimmer. Casual viewers may mistake her for a male until she speaks. This has been adopted by the fandom as a feature of Zebras in Equestria's world.** The Breezies. Fans have been searching far and wide for any way to tell their genders apart, but nothing yet has been found. Not even the voice, as, being tiny fairies, it's high pitched enough to leave room for confusion.* From around 1947 to 1955, WesternAnimation/MightyMouse was given eyelashes. They were absent from the 1959-61 TV-budget shorts and the Filmation series then reinstated in the Bakshi series.* ''[[WesternAnimation/PBAndJOtter PB&J Otter]]'' had Baby Butter Otter as the baby sister with no tertiary sexual characteristics, which was a triple whammy when came to ViewerGenderConfusion with her also having a similar character model to her brother Peanut and being OneOfTheBoys.* ''WesternAnimation/BunnyMaloney'' stars titular Bunny, a pink male rabbit, and his girlfriend Candy, a pink female rabbit. Bunny looks like the "men" silhouette on a restroom door if it had rabbit ears and a tail; Candy has a much curvier figure, {{Blush Sticker}}s, eyelashes, and a red scrunchie on her left ear.* While the female Franchise/CareBears tend to have lighter, more pastel colors than their male counterparts, color is not always a giveaway, and, of course, more than one bear has flipped gender between generations. According to TCFC, the way to distinguish males from females are the eyebrows, but it's not that females have them and males don't -- it's that females have three, while males have only two.* Summer Smith from ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is one of the few female characters on the show to lack eyelashes.* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' most female characters and gems aren't drawn with eyelashes (and most gems apparently have no breasts). Ironically, the one who does have noticeable eyelashes is the [[TheBrute very masculine, evil]] [[TomboyishName Jasper]]. Steven himself averts the cliche that only girls wear pink, as his clothes and powers are both pink.* Most boys in ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' have no eyelashes. Minor character Ian has eyelashes, possibly to emphasise that he is a "PrettyBoy", while the campy and effeminate Brandon also has eyelashes.* Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek from ''[[WesternAnimation/SamAndMax The Adventures of Sam & Max]]'' is drawn without lashes, further emphasizing her tomboyish appearance.* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Wildfire}}'', all the foals are given long eyelashes, including the colt Brutus.* Subverted with Little Sneezer from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures''. Eyelashes? check. High-pitched voice? Check. But make no mistake, he's a male.* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/BackAlleyOproar". Sylvester (before his {{Flanderization}} to Tweety's ButtMonkey) hands off a bit of sheet music to a big orange cat who looks stereotypically male (and the thing is, it's hard to say exactly ''how''). '''She''' proceeds to sing a lovely soprano aria from an opera -- before [[SlapstickKnowsNoGender getting clobbered with a shotgun butt and staggering off the roof.]]* An old animation trope was to draw all babies with eyelashes to make them look youthful and innocent. This can be seen in many shorts from the early-to-mid 1900s but has gone out of style since. This is why Tweety from ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' has prominent eyelashes--he's a chick.* In a scene of the very first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRuffAndReddyShow'' (the "Planet Pirates" story arc), Ruff is given eyelashes.* ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'': In "Not A Second Time," a very off-model Paul is given eyelashes as the boys rehearse their song.** In a singalong host segment when John asks Ringo for props to support a romantic ballad, Ringo emerges in a ballet dancer's tights ([[IncrediblyLamePun "I'm a ballad dancer!"]]), with eyelashes to boot.* The 1939 [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Warner Bros.]] cartoon "Screwball Football" has a team kicking off to start the game. The entire line is posed post-kickoff and then performing a cutesy dance recital and finishing it with a curtsy.* In a case of GettingCrapPastTheRadar, ''WesternAnimation/BeCoolScoobyDoo'' had Fred identifying the Mystery Machine as "she." Shaggy questions "The Mystery Machine is a girl??" After which Scooby looks under the chassis and asks "How can you tell?"[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]* The notion of pink for girls and blue for boys is a recent one. Before the 1940s (in America, at least), there were no specific colour attributions to gender. In fact, when pink and blue came into play, it was more likely to be [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/ blue for girls, who are 'dainty' and 'flighty', and pink for boys, as it was considered a stronger colour ]] - as decided by manufacturers and retailers and declared thus in a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department. Before the twenties, all children wore white dresses until their first haircut, as this was considered gender neutral.* There are many species of animals the sexes of which are completely impossible for humans to distinguish visually. Among Albatross for examples, even trained scientists have to use genetic sequencing to tell the male apart from the female in mated pairs. (this effort led to the discovery that many Albotrosses live and raise chicks in [[LesYay same-sex female pairs]].* Among birds, especially waterfowl, it is ''always'' the male who is more colorful; because the flashier you are, the more babies you have. (Here's a [[http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/birds/wood-duck-36611.jpg male wood duck]] and his [[https://mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/media/images/2012/01/wood_duck_0161cmyk.jpg female counterpart]] for reference.) And he always courts the female, who in turn is ''always'' "less pretty", right? Meet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalarope the Phalarope.]] They're essentially a [[PlanetOfHats whole genus]] of {{Wholesome Crossdresser}}s. The females even court the males and the males brood the eggs. It's not yet clear as to why this one group of little Arctic shorebirds has switched gender roles, but it causes a bit of [[ViewerGenderConfusion Birdwatcher Gender Confusion]] for those not in the know.* Men, especially [[CarpetOfVirility macho]] men, typically have longer eyelashes than women because they have more body hair. Long eyelashes are likely associated with femininity because they make the eyes look bigger, and feminine eyelashes also have a prominent curl, which does naturally occur in babies.* Similarly, some time periods (notably the '60s, '80s and especially 2010s) consider [[BigOlEyebrows thick eyebrows]] to be an ideal of feminine beauty. [[BigOlUnibrow Unibrows]] are actually considered youthful and attractive in Tajikistan, with women using a special herb to make them more prominent.* Some toilet signs avoid the outdated "women wear dresses" implication by having XX and XY instead, the female and male sex chromosomes, respectively. [[/folder]]----